meat above; beef roast with a bacon blanket of love
Some days it pays to just stop by your butcher to see how the day was, chew the fat so to speak. Guess what week this is ?!?! That’s right, you guessed it. It’s Smoked Beef Brisket Week at Rick’s Quality Meats in El Cerrito!
To those of you who understand brisket, really deeply understand that cut, this is something special. To those of you who don’t, please lend an ear.
The brisket for the most part is a really fatty tough cut of meat that can ONLY be dealt with over a long slow heat. If you’re willing to put in the time, the result is something that just can’t be matched in the meat arena. In a smoker this means 8 to 12 hours, no kidding. This is a premium true barbecue moment. This week is special.
Briskets come out of the Beef in about 12 pound slabs and Rick is probably doing maybe 6 slabs or so. He only does briskets once in a slow while and each time they’re ALL SOLD before they come out of the smoker. This is without the Meat Alerts.
MeatHenge is giving you a heads up so you can call RIGHT NOW, or tomorrow and get yourself a half slab of brisket. This is special and doesn’t happen frequently. Let Rick take the time to smoke these hunks for you and just show up late Thursday for your treat. If you hesitate even the smallest, you’ll lose. I have my name on one, you call and git yours. This will be good enough to make a special party for.
Plan to make a trek in to little E.C. and get the ONLY decent smoke beef brisket in town. GO !!!
Rick’s Quality Meats
510.233.9390
1600 Liberty Street
El Cerrito, CA 94530
p.s. please let Rick know you got this notice from Meathenge. I don’t get any kickbacks, it’s just nice to know whether MeatHenge works or not.
Author Archives: Biggles
Salt Marinated Chicken
Salt, doesn’t that look nice? I finally got a chance to use a portion of the Coarse Italian Sea salt I bought a while ago. A few months ago I marinated a whole chicken in a salt marinade for nearly 3 days. This bird came out absolutely amazingly moist & happy. You’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between that and a fancy rotisserie one. Interested? Yes you are. That was a bit long and the Meathead family had a disaster of a time reproducing it. So, this last Saturday I decided to lay down some recipe that was reproducible. What I came up with only takes 2 hours and just couldn’t possibly be any easier. This will render you rotisserie juice flavor action with almost no work. How do you like that? A lot. Time to move on.
Heirloom ‘Maters & Fatted Calf News
Hey, the Fatted Calf Newsletter just rolled in. Looks like we have a really nice layout for tomorrow. If there is any chance you could possibly make it in to the Farmer’s Market in Berkeley, do so. Just because Taylor is there every weekend right now, doesn’t mean he won’t hit the big time and open his own shop somewhere and ditch the market. So go now, while you can.
The image above is from our July 4th meal this last Saturday. If you look to the right of the image you’ll see two little puffy crepinettes and Taylor’s wieners. One little crepinette got a little dark, that darned caul fat really splatters. I can assure you, the inside was perfectly done. The large pile of meat to the left are two cut up chickens and a load of country style pork ribs all smoked with raw hickory chunks. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
I put a home made dry rub on both the chickens & pork the day before. Well, okay it was a wet rub. I doused everything in olive oil first, then the powdery love.
I forgot to get most of the makin’s for sauce, so I had to improvise with the sauce. For some odd reason it came out REALLY well. Ha ! I like to make most of my sauces on the thin side. This way you’re getting mostly meat flavor and the sauce just adds a little something plus some juicy squeeze.
I hope to see you at the market!
Here’s another reason to try out the Farmer’s Market. Check out those heirloom ‘maters from last week. Absolutely amazing. Get off yer rear and get out the door before this summer is over, foo.
On to the Newsletter …
Molten Cheese with Icey Meat
Yup, been about 6 days since my last post. Between the July 4th weekend and about enough inspiration to get my lazy ass out of bed in the morning, this post is about all I can handle at the moment. Inspiration will return, I’m sure. Let’s take a quiet interlude and explore the evil & dark world of ‘frozen prepared foods’, like the ones we find at Costco and large retail super outlets.
Fatted Calf News – July 4th preview
image above is a Duck Crepinette Breakfast
The Fatted Calf is bringing a lot to our Saturday morning this week. Not only do they have some pork Crepinettes with hazelnuts and wine soaked figs, but they are doing their Wieners this week too. Don’t discount this little guys for something ordinary. Even if you dislike hotdogs & balogna, you will love these little doggies. The texture isn’t quite as smooth as you’d think and the skins do snap. A very rich and tasty treat. The tough thing is finding bread good enough to saddle them up right. I hope to see you at the market first thing, don’t wait. He sells out quick.
on with the show
oooOOoo I spy pepperoni
Experiment – Destination Simmered Bean
There they are, cans of ‘food’. You know the ones, I’m talking about. Those cans that just don’t get used. Those bastard cans you have to move out of your way every time you reach for the pasta, tomatoes or what-have-you. This week my wife had enough of it and as I pushed the cans of beans out of the way so I could get some fresh dried beans (I planned to soak them over night) she said, “use these you foo!” In my mind I cringed, canned beans? Simmered for hours? Wretch.
The ‘clear’ decision was to use the canned beans for my concoction.
Cut Choices – Grill or Not?
One of the most frequent fears I hear from people is the one where you show up at the Super Market and don’t know what cut of meat to purchase.
Sometimes the lead butcher tries to help by installing stickers that say, BBQ or Grilling or Pot Roast. Okay, that helps to some degree. But what if you don’t have a grill or smoker ready and you want something juicy?
Ham – It isn’t just for the Holidays
Ham, it isn’t just for holidays anymore. I picked myself up a brined ham (needs cooking) this last Saturday from the Fatted Calf, just a little one. Not the 9 pound beast like last time, this one was about 2 pounds. Perfect size for a little snack treat. And a wondeful luscious treat it was.
New Orleans Style Iced Coffee
Well, here we are. Summer. In this part of the world that means cloudy mornings and foggy late afternoons broken up by wind & racoons. Mid day though you can expect a spell of nice sparkly warm weather. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something that gets you up and going and yet isn’t steaming hot? Yes, it would be nice. For quite some time now The Blue Bottle Coffee Company has had their New Orleans Style Iced Coffee at their stall in the Berkeley Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. Well, I have a gift for you, from them, right now.
Saucisson Sec – Meat Voids & Globey
This week Globey tries his turn at a cured meat slice
Saturday, along with assembliges of bunk beds, rendered me some really spectacular meats. The little 2 lb ham roast and the Hock & Simmered Bean Experiment I’ll share with you tomorrow. Right now I’d like to show you some Saucisson Sec.
Trevino’s Mexican Food – Richmond, CA
Today’s lunch makes about 2 decent meals this week. For me, that’s a pretty good ratio. Most of the time it is some dumb sandwich or something equally manky, grey or dripping something you wouldn’t normally ingest. Today I decided to go somewhere different, even if it is the same type of food, Mexican.
Getting close to July 4th – Fatted Wieners
Hey, here is a post-note: The weiners were right on. Home made looking and very rich with yummy snappy snaps. Very nice.
This week the Fatted Calf brings us all kinds of goodies to our Saturday Farmer’s Market. Our special this week are their own savory, garlicky pork and beef doggies, lightly smoked with a nice, snappy casing. Sign me up for a few, eh. Another offering they have is Glace de Viande (meat jello). A nice addition to soups, sauces & reductions of some sort or another.
A point of interest might be Mortadella and Crepinettes with Morels. I don’t see it listed, but see if Taylor has any of his Rabbit Pate available. What a tasty smooth happiness that was. Oh my and you know what else? I see Ham and the Hocks I missed from last week !!! One should arrive somewhat early. I am to understand he sold out of many things quite quickly last week. Yay.
I know I missed last week, I hope to see you there. (I think I’ll bring my special cloth meat bags to assist me in leaving without looking like a freak, this time).
MEAT ALERT !!! – Smokey Treats
I write to you today with the lingering flavors of Rick’s smoked Hot Italian Sausages. He smokes something each week, last week it was 75 pounds of assorted hunks. This he tells me, was gone within 24 hours or so. That’s without a Meat Alert. Dang.
Mile High Biscuits
I believe this marks about 15 Cook’s Illustrated magazines I’ve received so far. And this recipe is the first of anything I’ve found of any use out of that rag. I know I know, many people just ‘love’ to rave about it for one reason or another. Each issue I find a handful of things that make me see red. I’m willing to put down the boxing gloves for a moment because my wife and I are suckers for biscuits and this issue had a recipe worth taking a look at. Yum.
DIY Grilling Contest – Sadie’s Flying Elephant, San Francisco for July 4th
Introducing Shelly & Amelia, MeatHenge’s new ace reporters. Please let’s give them a helloooo. Helllooo.
Credit for images & article are theirs.
It’s Sunday in the city. It’s hot, for once, and everyone has come out of the woodwork for the Giant’s game on Father’s Day. We are headed to Sadie’s Flying Elephant to review the weekly Sunday afternoon barbecue, and we pass the Hotel Utah, a recently reopened landmark, of sorts, for those who have been around the City awhile. What should we see? nay smell? outside? A big, glorious grill, with meat stacked as high as the SoMa condos, smoking as high as an Oakland fire. “Oh to be there!” we cry. But alas, we’re on a mission from Biggles.